Tourniquet

Released June 28, 2011 • Recorded in Los Angeles, CA

It seems to be a rite of passage for every artist born in California to spend a year struggling in LA, and Grover is no exception. He sought fame and fortune, but instead worked an hourly service job and played infrequent shows to rooms filled with 8-10 true believers (aka friends). Two great things came from this time, though. First, Grover had a ton of spare time to write and record. Second, he met Samantha Free, who he recruited to help him finish a song he was struggling to write a third verse for called “Moonshine”, and Michael Clebanoff, who would be come his go-to mixer on all future albums. The result of this year was Tourniquet, which was released in 2011 and reveals Grover’s early explorations in songwriting. Undoubtedly influenced by Jack Johnson and Jason Mark, it also includes the debut of Grover’s personal favorite, “Boulder”, the story of an octogenarian reflecting on a love that he’s been unable to let go of as he imagines what comes when this life ends.

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Lyrics

Moonshine

Moonshine
Color me with moonshine
Making my eyes blind, Too blind to see
That I find, even in the daytime
You and your moonshine shine on me

You’re turning me into a night owl, I don’t know how
You overtook my consciousness and understood my loneliness
It’s misapprehension, often seen as condescension
But believe me when I say, I’m a fan of the direction
You’ve been taking your decisions, sparing me deserved derision,
Rebranded all my faults as “personality omissions”
You’ve eclipsed my inhibitions, pulled me out of darkly drifting
Never need to find another, cause I found someone to color me with Moonshine…

To me it’s enervating, what we’ve recreated
An acrylic piece over shadows painted
Watch the memories of gallows hanging
I can’t seem to fathom a day without your passion
Webbed in the dark, I feel it unraveling
I surf your bluesy waves and my soul goes traveling
I found a well of fishes that have granted me these wishes
In the darkest night you heal me with your Moonshine…

It’s almost painful how elegant you look smiling
I’m filing it away into the back of my mind
Your stylings are outdated but you’ve somehow recreated
A spark inside a part of me that’s long ago sedated
Take me back to seventeen, back to before
Your soul has lived a lifetime through peace and the war
Through perigees and blues you’ve held temerity and truth
I’m alone in the dark but I’m always with you, you’re my Moonshine…

Boulder

It’s much warmer these days, don’t know what happened to spring
We’re all perspiring but there’s something chilly in my veins
Here I am in California, thinking of Boulder again

She left Sacramento in ’52, her daddy got a job back at CU
And he bought a house of Fifth and Arapahoe
I was eighteen, such a reckless child, and those hazel eyes just drove me wild
So I kept my promise to follow her where she’d go
I got a job down in the mine, smutched my fingers trying to make hers shine
On New Year’s Eve I held her tight, asked her to be my heart and life
On the first of ’53 her daddy said no
Sent her off to Massachusetts, some women’s school
Later that year the coal mine blew
So I went back to family in Sacramento

The night before we said goodbye I swore to wait and she swore to try
And we made love on the old Chautauqua Green
I got her letters and she got mine, twice a week then one at a time
There was nothing longer than the days between
She wrote of professors, friends, the Harvard mixer ball
Summer came and I needed work, I couldn’t visit her at all
Then I got a letter in ’55, it killed me to read
“He’ll never take your place in my heart but this can never be
“Sending love from coast to coast is only fantasy
“But we’ll always have Boulder, September ’53.”

She got married, had a kid and died between June ’57 and May ’65
And I still got that ring in my billfold
I never wed, though I had the chance, but I learned guitar and I learned to dance
And a fella gets enough to satisfy his soul
But here in Angels City, summertime lasts half the year
And it’s never more than sixty in the memories I hold dear
And she used to tell me that she’d hate getting old
So each summer night when I close my eyes, pray when I go my soul survives
And we’ll together face the cold

Both Broken

Did I catch you trying to catch my eye?
I know, I gotta know if it’s true
Think I thought about it way too much,
It’s such a lack of discipline, I gotta use
My foresight, dreaming about having one night
Hypothesizing that I might catch you catch me
Trying to take my eyes off of you

Making elementary mistakes, sing songs about not hesitating
Knowing I’ll get my feet wet
Practiced what I’ve been preaching, I lapsed, these days
I’ve been reaching my heartstrings taught about as they’re gonna get
I find your thoughts egregious at some times
I can be equally asinine
I guess if we’re both broken…

It’s gonna be a long road from here on out
And if we’re both walking I’ll be by your side until my legs give out
On blacktop or dirt roads, we don’t need a map
Cause by your side is where I’m at
I got your back

Oh, I’m so foolish, but you’re so damn cool
With your blessed accessories that money can’t buy
I know you feel what I’m feeling, cause you’re so bad at concealing
The way you’re always going back and dotting my I’s
So surprise, surprise, we’ll call it a push
It’s tense always trying to circumvent the bush…

I’m so tired of adjectives, they’re nothing but words for fools to say
I couldn’t put it more plainly asking maybe you’ll be mine someday
And I can’t claim much in the way of notoriety or fancy things
That’s why I’m hoping the truth is all you’ll need…

…aw honey you’re where it’s at
I got your back

The Downside

If you see me on the outside
Will you show me where to go?
If you saw me on the downside
Would you keep me from the cold?
Purposefully organic, the road before unwinds
I need your gracious havoc to see me through this time

I’ve been nothing but a wanderer
You’ve been so much like a home
Though I hear the road beckon
Never shall it feed the love I’ve known
Patiently manic, you meander my mind
I need your gracious havoc to see me through this time

Now I’m off to fight the foreign
Gone to lands I’ll never know
Like my father and before him
In my blood I left you long ago
Modern day black magic, I hear the bullets whine
I need your gracious havoc to see me through this time

When you pull me from the trenches
Place your hand above my heart
Though it’s less than you expected
In our dreams I’ll never be that far

You may wish you’d never held me
You may wish you’d never loved
Though my enemies have felled me
My sacrifice won’t make me deserved of
Pitifully romantic, you hold me one more time
I need your gracious havoc to help me find

If you see me on the outside
And you show me where to go
When you save me from the downside
You will keep me from the cold

Westward

Rain coming in my window, sleeping in someone else’s bed
Forgot how long I’ve been gone, but no one’s worried about me yet
I’ll start walking westward and I’ll be home by summertime

I left town at six this morning, forgot to say goodbye
I doubt she’ll be missing me but she was kind enough to lie
It’s lonely walking westward but I’ll be home by summertime

Ain’t no highway could bring me down, and no one’s waiting up for me in town
Just a tourniquet as my spirit spills out all along this road
If only I knew where to go

I stopped in the city with time to look around
I don’t know my destination, but I know where I’m bound
I keep walking westward, I’ll be home by summertime

Ain’t no highway could bring me down, and no one’s waiting up for me in town
Just a tourniquet as my spirit spills out all along this road
If only I knew where to go

I just hit the ocean, God it’s been years
No breeze is quite as heavy, no lake is quite as clear
Ain’t no further westward, I’ll call it home for summertime

Ain’t no highway could bring me down, and I’m sure there’s a lot to see in town
The future’s just a mile marker somewhere down the road
Come winter, maybe I’ll try Mexico

Enemy

Helpless
Knocking me out my shoes like a classical temptress
I’ve been reduced to prey of your sexual lioness
I can’t believe that I once boasted prowess

Silence
I once believed it was calm, now it’s only violent
Life’s been putting me on, feeling for defiance
I can’t push you away, but I know all that you are

Energy
I feel you next to me
You get the best of me
But you’re my Enemy

Grasping
I try pushing you off but I got no traction
Though I need you to stop I live for this passion
Addicted to this ecstasy, the parasite that masquerades as you

This time I’m telling you goodbye
But I won’t have the strength to look you in the eye
Even if I tear my body free
My soul is still a prisoner of my
Enemy

We’re Not a Very Good Band

Listening to a Woody Guthrie song
Doing my best to get along
Trying to figure out which side I’m on
Listening to a Woody Guthrie song

I think I’m going numb
Headed back where I came from
I keep looking out at the land yet to run
But it won’t stop this going numb

I heard Johnny quit the band
He couldn’t take the demand
We never look back but we understand
We’re not a very good band

I couldn’t possibly carry on
I know I already gone on too long
I kept out of sight, still I done you wrong
Listening to a Woody Guthrie song

Living in Mono

My speaker broke, so I’m living in mono
My shirt’s been washed too many times so I rock the fade
I wear the same jeans every day, these holes are nothing that I paid for
I’m running out of time to run away

Why wouldn’t I want to be right here, right now, right beside you?
Right here in the mix, in the moment, in the middle of making dreams come true
Just one of the 86,400 in this day
And what’s wrong with spending each of them this way?

Try to stop it, try to top it when you see us try to rock it
Nothing sweeter than a streetside singer, don’t you knock it
Yeah we do it for the fame, maybe do it for the profit
When we started there was nothing but our hands down in our pockets
But we’re lying fine and dandy if we say there’s no eye candy
At each and every one of our shows
We got a propensity for the density of all these fine California OH…

If you’ve been listening to the melody then tell me
If you’re not in the mood to hear this verse

We’re gonna keep it loose and flowing,
Keep it natural, knowing that nobody could rehearse,
Recreate or reimagine all the feeling, all the passion,
>All the grooving that’s going down
All of the sexual attraction driving me to distraction, now everybody gather ’round

It was time for us to study at the Hall, we headed down to Pardall,
Caught up with Money Ray at the door
They had “Dandylyin” playing, 50 Clubbers were saying
Turn that local shit up a little bit more
McColgan, Elio and Smitty pouring drinks for all
The pretty girls just soaking in the atmosphere
Afternooning, we’re grooving but it’s time to get moving,
everybody finish up their beer
We’re going downtown, late night,
We do it right from Wildcat to Sandbar, that sound okay?
Finish up with Lacey at O’Malleys, grab a cab, glad,
Singing like “Oo-da-lolly, golly what a day!”